I really have no idea how to do this...does anyone else know:confused:

chickentree

03-26-2013, 08:46 AM

I really have no idea how to do this...does anyone else know:confused:

The first suggestion I would usually give is to find out what you don't understand and then research it until you do. In this case the problem doesn't give you much to go on. If you have not been exposed to the quadratic equation you would rightly be at a lost.
Fear not, little understanding of the quadratic equation is necessary for our purposes and Alice has to do the math!
If you look at the Discriminant Wiki it will tell you all you need to know in the first couple of paragraphs. The discriminant is the stuff under the square root sign "b^2 - 4ac" where b^2 is b squared or b * b. and there are three cases:

The result is positive - there are two answers.
The result is zero - There is one answer.
The result is negative - There are no answers.

This means YOUR problem boils down to:

Get three numbers from the user.
Use the numbers to determine the discrimant, using the formula above.
Test the discriminant to see how many answers there are.
Use the qudratic formula to compute the answers, if needed.
Have the mad scientist say the answer.